05-27-2017, 03:19 AM
Not when NASA requires a paperwork stack taller than the launch vehicle thats going to launch the probe... no, it's not worth it.
RacerX's stories aren't the only ones I've read like that.
Take a common bolt. The manufacturing print for a typical bolt would have a material callout, a heat treating callout, and maybe 10 dimensions for the various surfaces, angles, etc.
On a NASA print, there would be five pages of material specs, five pages of heat treating specs, and five pages of dimensions.
AND EVERY SINGLE SPEC, AND DIMENSION would require at least ten pages of documentation, in detail, signed and certified in every way, with test data from independant labs, and the certifications OF those labs, that the dimension was met.
A simple bolt could take several hundred pages of documentation. Hundreds of hours in testing, getting certification papers for every supplier, for every test, every calibration of every tool used...
And in the end, the exact same bolt could have been purchased off the shelf for $5.
By the end of the process, the bolt manufacturer iften says, "I am NEVER doing this again!"
RacerX's stories aren't the only ones I've read like that.
Take a common bolt. The manufacturing print for a typical bolt would have a material callout, a heat treating callout, and maybe 10 dimensions for the various surfaces, angles, etc.
On a NASA print, there would be five pages of material specs, five pages of heat treating specs, and five pages of dimensions.
AND EVERY SINGLE SPEC, AND DIMENSION would require at least ten pages of documentation, in detail, signed and certified in every way, with test data from independant labs, and the certifications OF those labs, that the dimension was met.
A simple bolt could take several hundred pages of documentation. Hundreds of hours in testing, getting certification papers for every supplier, for every test, every calibration of every tool used...
And in the end, the exact same bolt could have been purchased off the shelf for $5.
By the end of the process, the bolt manufacturer iften says, "I am NEVER doing this again!"